Stewart buildings to be razed

STEWART AIRPORT — A $2.5 million state grant announced this week will do more than help knock down a bunch of old buildings.

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By MICHAEL RANDALL

recordonline.com

By MICHAEL RANDALL

Posted Jan. 17, 2008 at 2:00 AM

By MICHAEL RANDALL
Posted Jan. 17, 2008 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

STEWART AIRPORT — A $2.5 million state grant announced this week will do more than help knock down a bunch of old buildings.

It will remove what some consider an eyesore that gives a bad first impression to passengers driving into Stewart International Airport.

The Town of New Windsor applied for the grant, which will be used to level 30 to 40 of those crumbling old brick buildings that line both sides of International Boulevard, the new entrance road to the airport that opened in November.

They'll eventually be replaced by First Columbia, the Albany-based firm redeveloping 260 town-owned acres west of the airport under a 99-year lease. First Columbia is planning office, commercial and industrial buildings for the site.

Chris Bette, vice president of First Columbia, said the company wants to start demolition in the spring. First, it has to finish environmental testing, checking for things like asbestos, which must be removed separately before demolition begins.

New Windsor Supervisor George Green said this was the second time the town applied for grant funding.

Why did it succeed this time when it failed the last?

Green "can't say for sure" but guesses it might have something to do with the increased level of confidence in the airport's future that sprung up among many individuals and agencies last year after it was learned that Port Authority planned to take over the Stewart lease. Port Authority took over airport operations Nov. 1.

"The airport has been touted by local, state and federal politicians as the economic engine of the Hudson Valley," Green said. Noting the airport is likely to see more than a million passengers this year — volume topped 900,000 last year — Green added, "We want to present an image that is a positive image."

The brick buildings being removed date back as far as the 1940s, when the Air Force and Army were Stewart's primary occupants, and reflect the functional look of a military base. Many of them have been unused and not maintained for decades.

But it won't be a wholesale leveling of the old. Bette said 20 or 30 of the buildings could be salvageable and will be incorporated into the project.